We have been following the goings-on from the folks over at Virgin Galactic for quite some time, and it seems like only a matter of time before tickets are offered up for sale and passengers head towards the great beyond.

Things are getting one step closer, as Virgin Galactic recently submitted all kinds of paperwork and presentations to Uncle Sam and his buddies over at the Federal Aviation Administration. Thankfully everyone seems to be onboard with the plan, and that means we’re one step closer to taking off into outer space.

Fearless prediction: this is going to get solved before it becomes a problem. There are too many famous people involved, there is too much money at stake, and the optics would be catastrophic. Can you imagine how this would play out in the media? "Washington DC has become so inefficient that it's blocking actual real life we're-living-in-the-future space tourism."

Federal agencies can be cumbersome and individual bureacrats can be petty. But if the FAA actually jams up the launch of a Virgin Galactic space jet - which people say might actually happen - we can finally and safely assume that literally nobody is in charge of anything any more. Seriously. It would look so horrible that we don't understand how anyone is even allowed to go on the record saying it's a possibility.

You know we like to follow the goings on of Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic project, and now we’ll be able to do from the comfort of our couch. Virgin Galactic is teaming up with the mastermind behind shows like Survivor and The Voice—Mark Burnett—to launch a reality show to give away a ride into space.

Details are limited at this point, but we’d imagine that things would follow the basic premise of pretty much all reality shows. Unique personalities, wacky competitions, and plenty of drama should lead to a show worthy of a spot on our DVR. We do know that the show will be called "Space Race," and the big winner will get a ride aboard SpaceShipTwo.

Yesterday, Virgin America not only launched its new three-times daily flight service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas but it also unveiled its new seat-to-seat ordering service on the Red in-flight entertainment system. Yes, it means what you think it means--you can buy drinks and snacks for your friends, your colleagues or perhaps your new crush and have the goodies sent right to their seat.*

David Cush, CEO of Virgin America, told us that the new service evolved from the seat-to-seat chat platform on Red but the real inspiration was that "people were doing it anyways." So now instead of flagging the flight attendants down, passengers can just take the onboard happy hour into their own hands.**

Usually when we talk about Virgin Atlantic we’re chatting about their awesome international long-haul service, but this time we're taking a break from it. Don’t worry—they’re still heading to plenty of overseas destinations—but they’re now also doing the domestic thing. We heard that this was in the works a while ago, and they even had a little contest to name their newest planes. Well, it looks like planes and names have been somewhat finalized, and it’ll be "Little Red" doing the flying over in Europe and the United Kingdom.

The new carrier-within-a-carrier will be known as Virgin Atlantic Little Red, and they’ll be doing most of their flying to spots in and around the UK. The new routes are heading to and from London-Heathrow Terminal 1. From there you’ll be able to fly to spots like Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Manchester.

Kinda like an irreverent Amber Alert, Richard Branson is looking for someone and now all corners of the earth have their eyes peeled for the original Virgin model. One major problem is that identity of said model is a complete mystery.

The model became the face of the brand some 40 years ago, posing for the very first Virgin Records brand logo. Donning nothing but her birthday suit, the 'mystery virgin' became the inspiration for the the drawing which has been tweaked and reworked over the years to reflect a modern twist, now replaced by the current vampy red 'Virgin' word.

A new year means some new airplanes, and once again the airlines are just too darn lazy to name the planes themselves. They’re turning to us to help them out, and this time it’s Virgin Atlantic that’s looking to the masses to select a clever name, though it won't be for a jumbo jet headed across the Atlantic. Instead it's one of their new Airbus airplanes destined to hit the new Virgin Atlantic short-haul routes.

We mentioned a while ago that Virgin Atlantic was looking at starting some flights in and around the United Kingdom, and now it’s almost time to start flying. To celebrate the new options set to startup between London and Manchester toward the end of March, officials over at Virgin Atlantic—like Sir Richard Branson—are teaming up with the Manchester Evening News for a little bit of a contest.

If you're planning to fly today, keep an eye out for some extra special passengers walking through the airport. Particularly, towards any mood-lit gates for Virgin America. If this describes your travel plans, have your smartphone ready, since there's a little prize involved.

Virgin is launching a new promotion and the fun all starts today with, as expected, a bucket load of Virgin-ness. The promotion is highlighting the airline's passenger "Experience" and will begin to use actual photos snapped onboard any flight. If you get some cool shots mid-flight today, upload them to Instagram and push it to Twitter using the hashtag #MyVXExperience and your photos will be live-streamed to the NASDAQ board in Times Square.

For those with fingers who can snap, upload and tag photos fastest (and you don't have to be on a Virgin America flight to do so), a 30% discount code for a Virgin flight will hit your Twitter DMs. Not too shabby! Just be fast, since this is only open to the first 1,000 photos.

Chillax for a sec, mkay? We want to take a moment to alert you to the fact that not only is today the launch of Virgin America's new uniforms; it's also "Virgin America Day" in San Francisco and the entire airline's Fifth Anniversary celebrating the start of flights!

And guess what? We were actually there on that very first flight, August 8, 2007. It was the infancy of our live coverage, though we'd been cheering VX on from the start of the "Let VA Fly" campaign to the Department of Transportation. And, just as the airline has grown in awesomeness, so have we. Today we want to congratulate them by getting all sentimental and looking back on our own favorite photo moments: